The present invention relates to a pipe cleaning equipment having at least one cleaning unit and a propelling unit for propelling the unit through a pipe line, said cleaning unit having a rim of rigid cutter arms pivotably mounted on a head of the unit. Cleaning equipment of this type is disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,130,431 and 3,262,143; the first relates to the cleaning unit and the second to the propulsing or propelling unit.
Cleaning equipment as disclosed in the above references has been used sucessfully for years, but it is extremely difficult to know for sure which features of the cleaning equipment contribute to the cleaning effect of the equipment as a whole. Particularly, it is difficult to determine how such cleaning equipment, and particularly structural elements its cleaning unit, should be constructed in order to clean properly and most efficiently pipe lines having heavy incrustation. The difficulty particularly results from the fact that it is impossible to observe the equipment during its cleaning operation in pipe lines having varying contaminations and incrustations and it is also very difficult to imitate artificially or reconstruct the particular conditions encountered in contaminated and incrustated pipes in order to study systematically the effects of the cleaning equipment and to make improvements based on test results. In other words, it cannot be known in advance which measures may lead to an improvement in the equipment cleaning efficiency.